MCCALL REVEALS PLAN TO CLOSE HUGE BUDGET GAP

State Comptroller H. Carl McCall said yesterday that if elected governor,
he would appoint Wall Street financier Felix Rohatyn as an advisor to help
him deal with New York State's extensive fiscal problems, which McCall said
were caused by "maybe the biggest budget gap in history."

In 1975, Rohatyn was tapped by then Gov. Hugh Carey to help devise a way to
pull New York City out of its financial crisis. He served as chairman of
the Municipal Assistance Corp. until 1993 and was an ambassador to France
during President Bill Clinton's second term.

Before marching in the Columbus Day Parade, McCall held a press conference
with his former rival in the Democratic primary, Andrew Cuomo, to chide
Gov. George E. Pataki for failing to lay out a detailed vision for a third
term. "This is the time that the debate should become serious, and that has
not happened in this campaign with Gov. George Pataki," Cuomo said. "He
lives only in the present. There's no past, and no future."

Pataki disputed the attack, citing several economic development ventures
his administration has launched. "We have dozens of ideas out there that
are important and that will allow us to continue to move forward," Pataki said.

Also yesterday, Independence Party candidate Tom Golisano announced that he
favored repealing the state's Rockefeller-era drug laws, which set
inflexible prison sentences for people based on the quantity of drugs they
are caught with. Both McCall and Pataki have put forth their own ideas
about loosening those laws. But Golisano, in proposing scrapping them, was
appealing for downstate voters, who have yet to embrace his campaign.

McCall said that Sunday's debate, which included all five third-party
candidates including one from the Marijuana Reform Party, "wasn't very
useful," although he noted, "I learned more about hemp production than I'd
ever learned." Pataki, also marching in the parade, called the debate "fine."